Sometimes when people are getting started in genealogy, they don’t think about the possibility that relatives can turn up in places where they aren’t expected. One very famous American lady was an immigrant from France, born in the 1880s. My family recently paid a visit to her slightly younger sister, who still lives in Paris. The family […]
When Relatives “Turn up” Read More »
I’m always skeptical of connections to the famous, the powerful, and the high-born, but a current project in Tudor England is starting to smell suspicious. The family name matches the name of a village. In that village lived a noble family of the same name. In the parish church remains of this family include medieval
Mother’s Day has passed and Father’s Day will soon be upon us. Though we don’t tend to think of parents as ancestors, technically they are. How far back does a person need to be to be thought of as an ancestor? Grandparent does not seem far enough back. If Mother’s Day and Father’s Day exist
The Psychology of Ancestors Read More »
Spring is here and with it, the time for spring cleaning. No one really knows the origin of the tradition. It might be purely practical. In March and April in Europe and North America, there tends to be a time when it is warm enough to really open up the house and get the dust
You’ve probably heard that sometimes things don’t work out the way you want. That is true in general, and it is certainly true in genealogy. If we want to know what really happened, then one skill that genealogists need to develop is the handling of disappointment. The last few days I’ve been trying to find
Genealogy is certainly all about people. As we research we try to find out what we can about ancestors, their relatives, and sometimes even their whole communities. It is easy to forget that those people, and the relationships that connect them, are not the starting points for our research, but the results. Except for those
Putting the Chart before the Source Read More »
A roll of microfilm arrived for me the other day. That is hardly unusual. I really wanted to look at it. Not so unusual either. With a tiny little bit of time, I put the reel on the machine, forwarded it a bit, brought the image in to focus, and guessed where in the reel
Out of Focus Genealogy Read More »
It has been a while since I mixed mathematics and genealogy. It feels like time to do that again. Genealogy is all about information. We gather information and use it to figure out information about ancestors and relatives. There is a branch of engineering and mathematics that is actually called information theory. It describes many
A Surprised Genealogist in Mathmagic Land Read More »
Last week I was at Rootstech helping people with their Swedish ancestry. I may have called this kind of thing genealogical speed dating before. If I haven’t, I will now. It goes fast and it can be a lot of fun. Sometime there just isn’t enough time to find records or to think things through.
I’ve been researching Robert. He was a soldier in the Revolutionary War. In his pension application he made many statements. He listed his units and the surnames of those units’ commanding officers. It was very good information. I learned where his units gathered, the paths they took on the march and the name of the
The Kindness of Strangers’ Pension Files Read More »